<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>sanguinem fratris by crookedmouth</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26595190">sanguinem fratris</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/crookedmouth/pseuds/crookedmouth'>crookedmouth</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Avatar: Legend of Korra</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>AU - Amon Wins, Age Difference, Arousal by Coercion, Bloodbending (Avatar), Dark, Disturbing Themes, F/M, Forced Orgasm, Grimdark, In Zhao's Words: That's a Lot of Damage, Inappropriate Use of Bending (Avatar), Kinda Incestuous, Power Dynamics, Recovery is Unlikely, Sexual Violence, Tarrlok's Self-Loathing, Torture</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-09-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-09-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 03:01:24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>4,176</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26595190</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/crookedmouth/pseuds/crookedmouth</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Something shifts in Noatak once the Equalist Revolution comes to fruition.<br/><br/>It's no longer enough that he has taken away the Avatar's bending, nor that his brother is equally helpless.<br/><br/>Now he needs to break them.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Amon | Noatak &amp; Tarrlok, Korra/Tarrlok (Avatar)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>64</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>sanguinem fratris</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Welp, here's the grimdark Korrlok fic that absolutely nobody asked for, and that I wrote anyway. I have no excuses.<br/>I actually really enjoy the fandom's interpretation of Tarrlok as a pining, seriously conflicted love interest, even if it does seem rather out of character with what we see in the show. Still, it scratched an itch I didn't even know I had. Being me, I decided to take all that was good about that ship and do something truly awful to it. Enjoy, I guess?</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Tarrlok paces the metal interrogation room restlessly, alternating between wringing his hands and running one shakily through his hair.</p><p>He can feel his heart pounding in his chest, the thrum of his accelerated pulse loud in his ears. But there is no intoxicating ebb and flow, no way to reign in the tide of his own body. Moments like this remind him just how well and truly helpless he has become. A stranger even in his own flesh.</p><p>Tarrlok swallows deeply, trying to quell the feeling of nausea rising up the back of his throat. He needs to get used to this, to the lack of control.</p><p>It’s hard, though. The last twenty years of his life – more than that, if he’s honest – have been nothing but controlled and meticulously maintained. The Equalist Revolution has thrown all that out the window. Amon’s – <em>Noatak</em>, he reminds himself, <em>his brother’s</em> – removal of his bending has changed everything.</p><p>He knows he needs to accept his defeat, find some remaining scrap of dignity and figure out a way to carry forward, just as he would with an ultimately unsuccessful council proposal. He is alive, after all, even though this makes him a horribly loose end, given all he knows.</p><p>At least, he is alive for now. He’s still not quite sure why they’ve brought him here.</p><p>He closes his eyes, breathes out as slowly and steadily as he can.</p><p>The part of him that answers – answered – to Councilman refuses to move on. His brother has <em>decimated </em>the city. The streets have descended into pits of retribution and violence. Tarrlok is lulled to sleep by the sound of screaming each night, the harsh hum and crackle of merciless, mechanical electricity. Even if it had been founded as a selfish sort of façade, his desire to be a savior of this place was never insincere. Now all his work has been undone and Republic City, his project and his prize, is being ravaged before his very eyes while he can do absolutely nothing about it.</p><p>And then there’s the young Avatar. <em>Korra. </em></p><p>Tarrlok breaks the cycle of his pacing to rub his face with both hands, pressing the heels of his palms into his eyes, trying to ground himself with the uncomfortable pressure.</p><p>The door of the interrogation room screeches open, and Tarrlok drops his hands from his face, blinking away pinprick stars.</p><p>As though summoned by his contemplations, Korra tumbles into the room on unsteady limbs, her face a mask of panic, and behind her comes the great equalizer himself.</p><p>Tarrlok stiffens. He quickly glances between Noatak and the girl, trying to gauge what the masked man has done to her. His fingers twitch as he suppresses the instinct to step forward, to receive Korra in his arms or to move between her and his brother. But the girl’s eyes widen upon catching sight of him, and she whirls around in confusion, reluctant to keep her living nightmare at her back, unseen.</p><p>It occurs to Tarrlok that she must not be too thrilled to be sharing a room with him, either.</p><p>Noatak ignores her furious glare and secures the door behind him, the sound of metal against metal harsh against Tarrlok’s ears and somehow incredibly cold. He stalks towards the table in the middle, pulling out a chair and dragging it into a dark corner. He flips it with a powerful movement of his arm, then settles into the seat, resting his forearms on the high back of the chair. His legs are spread wide, feet firmly planted on either side. Every motion of the man’s body seems to emphasize his size, his authority.</p><p>He stares at them in silence from behind the smooth, unnerving expression of his mask. Korra sidles closer to Tarrlok in a very conscious effort to distance herself from the man who has stripped her of her Avatar title. A wretched part of him thrills at the thought there might also be a less conscious part of her seeking out the warmth and safety of his larger frame, a part of her that sees him as an ally in whatever this is.</p><p>Tarrlok clears his throat self-consciously, clasping his hands behind his back in poor mimicry of his confident stance as a Councilman.</p><p>“Why have you brought us here, Noatak?”</p><p>The shadow of the mask makes it almost impossible to know whether or not the man even blinks. It tilts, just a fraction, and Korra is caught like a cat deer in the headlights of a Satomobile, a shiver running through her body.</p><p>“Korra,” Noatak croons, “my brother seems stressed, does he not?”</p><p>Tarrlok can feel a prickle of warning as the hairs on the back of his neck bristle and lift from his skin. The girl splutters.</p><p>“I – wha— that’s not – Of course he’s stressed!” she shouts, gesticulating wildly to the interrogation room. “Who wouldn’t be, with you locking them in rooms for no obvious reason?”</p><p>Her lips part as though to say more, but Noatak raises his hand. Tarrlok can see the faintest twinge of muscle in his brother’s palm, and Korra falls abruptly silent.</p><p>“Why don’t you help him relax.”</p><p>It’s not a question. Tarrlok watches as Noatak lowers his hand, flexing his fingers strangely, and then Korra is walking closer to him, eyes wide. She’s not moving of her own volition – that much is clear in the way she’s watching her legs as though they belong to someone else – but the steps are so fluid, so <em>natural</em>, it makes his own bloodbending against her look like the ham-fisted work of a child.</p><p>With a shudder, Tarrlok realizes this eerie proficiency must have come about as all their bloodbending techniques have in the past – with great practice.</p><p>He takes a step back, away from her, not wanting to participate in whatever his brother is orchestrating. But Noatak is relentless, and Korra takes another almost teasing step closer before slipping behind him. Her waist brushes against his still-clasped hands and he flinches, immediately bringing his arms down.</p><p>“Noatak,” he growls, the thrum of his pulse back in his ears, “what are you doing?”</p><p>In answer, Korra’s hands slide up his back, sensuous save for their obvious trembling. She splays her fingers, roving the broad expanse of his shoulders, thumbs making slow circular motions. Tarrlok’s breath catches in his throat, a horrible hot sensation creeping into the pit of his stomach. He has not been on the receiving end of touch – <em>kind</em> touch, that is – in a long time. It feels impossibly good, this simple caress, and is made all the more awful because of that. He should be repulsed, and he is, but his feelings do not end with that, much as they should.</p><p>Tarrlok clenches his jaw and makes to pull away from Korra, for his veins are still his own and he cannot allow himself to be a willing partner in this, but her grip is suddenly on his shoulders, her fingers applying pressure with unnatural force. He stills.   </p><p>Her hands relax a little, curling up and over the collar of his coat, gently dragging it from his shoulders. He shudders as it falls away from him – because the interrogation room is cold, because it is one less layer between him and the world and he suddenly feels very exposed – and then Korra’s hands are kneading into the more accessible muscles of his back.</p><p>Despite himself, he groans.</p><p>“Does it feel good, brother?”</p><p>Noatak’s voice is somewhere between a purr and a deadpan. Tarrlok can feel the wave of self-loathing wash over him, the nausea of earlier returning in full force, accompanied by a miserable flush of heat up his neck. Behind him, he can feel Korra stiffen.</p><p>He has told Noatak nothing, has done all he possibly can to seem disinterested in the young Avatar, and still his brother seems to <em>know. </em></p><p>“I think you’ve proven your point,” Tarrlok manages to grate out, evading the question. New knots are clustering beneath his skin even as Korra’s fingers massage them loose.</p><p>“Have I?” Noatak returns, adjusting himself in the chair slightly. “But I’ve just gotten started.”</p><p>With a strained whimper, Korra’s body is moved from behind him. She walks – saunters, more like, given the way her hips are forced to sway – towards Noatak and then settles awkwardly onto his knee.</p><p>Tarrlok’s hands clench into fists at his sides.</p><p>Korra snakes her own up Noatak’s chest, coming to entwine behind his neck. One of his comes to rest against her hip, almost apathetically.</p><p>“Don’t – ” the word is out of his mouth before Tarrlok can stop himself, the rest hanging unsaid but obvious.</p><p>
  <em>Don’t touch her.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Don’t hurt her.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Don’t take her from me. </em>
</p><p>Noatak chuckles, removing his hand from the girl’s body, bringing his palms up as though in surrender.</p><p>“Oh Tarrlok,” his voice is deep and rich and utterly venomous from beneath that impassive mask. “You know I don’t even need to. I’m already <em>inside</em> her.”</p><p>The thumb of his left hand makes a faintly circular motion, and then Korra’s face explodes into a blush. A stifled noise breaks past her lips, somewhere between an indignant snarl and a gasp of surprise, maybe even pleasure.</p><p>Tarrlok feels his own cheeks flush. He knows what his brother is doing, redirecting the girl’s blood so that it throbs achingly between her thighs. He has, in debased and desperate moments of self-abuse, thought of doing exactly the same thing.</p><p>Except, he reminds himself, that he has never given in to the temptation. Has always kept things between himself and the young Avatar strictly professional, even if his flattery and attempts at bribery were, perhaps, a bit much. What’s more, every time he has entertained the thought of misusing his bending, Tarrlok has spent successive days consumed by guilt and disgust, unable to even look at his own reflection.    </p><p>Clearly Noatak has no such qualms.</p><p>He watches uncomfortably as Korra quivers from her position straddling Noatak’s knee, her grip on the other man’s shoulders tensing. She is resisting, is fighting whatever profane instruction her muscles have received, and Tarrlok feels a glimmer of pride at her strength. But then a mortified sob bursts out of her, and he cannot wrench his eyes away from the sight of her hips rolling against his brother’s thigh.</p><p>She is forced to repeat the motion, grinding herself, and Tarrlok can almost feel the shame and revulsion rolling off of her. He is furious, horrified, disgracefully piqued. The broken noises she emits are too much.  </p><p>“Stop this, Noatak!” he hisses angrily.</p><p>“No, I don’t think I will.” The other man hums, apparently unaffected by the languid sliding of flesh against his own. He makes a flicking motion with his wrist and Korra is nearly lifted from her feet, spun around to face Tarrlok before settling back down on Noatak’s knee.</p><p>Tarrlok finds that he has backed himself against the table of the interrogation room and is gripping the edge of it tightly. He does not know if he consciously willed his legs to move or if he was forced to. It is the same with his eyes. He can still blink, but the thin capillaries of his eyelids thicken stubbornly when he tries to keep them shut. Where his own will begins and Noatak’s influence over him ends is no longer clear. He hates it, hates <em>him.</em></p><p>Korra resumes the rolling of her hips, only now her eyes are locked on Tarrlok’s own, and he can see the mingled dismay and abashed arousal on her face. Her lips are parted slightly, cheeks burning, chest rising and falling in helpless, heavy pants.</p><p>He wants to look away. He really does. It feels like he is witnessing something forbidden.</p><p>Noatak shifts the position of his foot, and the motion of her hips increases, no longer a sensuous slide but an insistent gyration. Her head lolls back with a groan of frustration and alarm, and then Korra’s shaking hands have grasped the hem of her shirt and are lifting it up and over her head.</p><p>Tarrlok’s grip on the table tightens to the point of pain, his knuckles white.</p><p>She is utterly exposed from the waist up, her laboured breathing and the rocking of her lower half gently heaving her breasts up and down.</p><p>He shouldn’t be watching this. It is <em>wrong</em>. No matter how many times he may have fantasized about it, Tarrlok knows he is unworthy of what is before him. Yet he drinks the sight in like a man on the verge of blindness.</p><p>“She’s beautiful, isn’t she?” Noatak smirks from behind his mask.    </p><p>“…y-yes.” Tarrlok rasps in defeat, unable to deny it.</p><p>It is only shame, he tells himself, devastating, damning shame. His brother knows the power of humiliation, there will be no need for physical pain.</p><p>Noatak shoves Korra mid-buck, and she practically leaps from his lap, tumbling across the room on unsteady legs to rest against Tarrlok’s chest.</p><p>He does not care in that moment if their proximity is borne out of his brother’s bending or her own volition. She is close enough that he can comfort her, and his limbs respond to his command, releasing his vice-like grip on the table so that he can envelop the girl in his arms protectively.</p><p>She buries her face against him, and he can feel the wet of her tears already seeping through his shirt. He lifts a hand from her naked back to stroke her hair gently. She is so warm against him in the cold interrogation room, her breasts continuing to rise and fall with her ragged, weeping breaths. He wants to reassure her, to give his solemn promise that it is over and she isn’t going to be hurt, that he’ll keep her safe, but the words lodge in his throat.</p><p>Blood drains from his face, panic overcomes him. He shifts awkwardly, trying to angle his hips away from Korra.</p><p>“That is <em>enough</em>, brother!” he snarls, placing heavy emphasis on the fraternal title, hoping it will remind Noatak that they are kin, and there are some things that brothers simply do not do with each other. To each other.</p><p>Noatak folds his arms over the back of the chair again.</p><p>“I’m not doing anything, Tarrlok,” he replies smoothly. “That’s all you.”</p><p>No. Tarrlok refuses to accept that. He is a consummate liar and a corrupt politician and he knows better than anyone the sound of untruth. But he also knows, intimately, what his brother’s presence in his blood feels like, and to his growing consternation he cannot sense any trace of Noatak’s meddling in his loins. Apparently the inappropriate thickening between his thighs is, mortifyingly, happening all on its own.</p><p>It shouldn’t be possible, he thinks, not under these circumstances. He is not a virile boy anymore, responsive to the merest thought or sensation. Age has, regrettably, taken some of that from him. There have been times when, attempting to relieve himself of a tightly wound tension, he has remained stubbornly soft in his own hands. Stress, an overabundance of work, even his own duplicitous conscience has kept him from pleasure in the past. And yet here he is, a prisoner, hardening under the unrelenting stare of his own brother.</p><p>Tarrlok feels sick.</p><p>His hand trembles as he strokes it against Korra’s hair, the muscles of his jaw tensing beneath an unshaven layer of stubble. He glares at his brother seated in the shadows, tries to think of the most unexciting bylaw clauses he knows as a distraction. He <em>will not</em> be party to this.</p><p>“N-no-no-no…” Korra makes a muffled cry of refusal against his chest, and he has to drop his arms from around her with a gasp of his own, trying to intercept her before she is forced to fondle him. He wrestles embarrassedly with her, hips dodging backwards, despairing at the fact it only seems to make him harder.</p><p>If it weren’t so frustrating, so terrifying, he might actually have had the gall to laugh at the situation. Months and months of trying to shove aside his concupiscent pining, and here she literally cannot keep her hands off him. What an agonizingly sweet, ironic turn of events.</p><p>Except that it isn’t real, he reminds himself. He doesn’t want her if it isn’t real, and that’s precisely why it will never happen.        </p><p>Tiring of their tussle, Noatak makes an impatient motion with his hand, and suddenly Tarrlok’s grip on Korra’s wrists evaporates, hands drifting up to cup her face. He swallows, stares with fearful intensity into her tear-rimmed eyes, praying to all he knows that she can read the look of appalled apology on his face. She hiccoughs, lower lip trembling, before her hands resume their original trajectory towards his crotch.</p><p>He lets out a tortured hiss at the first contact, forcing his eyelids shut so she can’t see his eyes nearly roll back into his head at the pleasure of it. He bites his lip, refusing to make another sound even as hot breath forces its way through his flared nostrils. When he opens his eyes, he can see that he is tilting her head up to him, her lips parted as though in anticipation of the kiss neither of them has the power to refuse.</p><p>“<em>Please</em>, Noatak,” Tarrlok pleads, his voice husky. “She doesn’t want this.”</p><p>
  <em>She doesn’t want me. </em>
</p><p>He cannot bring himself to say that he isn’t also wanting.</p><p>His brother chuckles darkly from where he is seated in the shadows.</p><p>“Of course she doesn’t. You’re old enough to be her father.”</p><p>It’s a horrible reminder to be given just as his mouth crashes into hers.</p><p>The muscles of his neck are corded beneath his skin in resistance, and he wonders with a terrible chill just how violent he might be if he weren’t fighting his brother’s influence. It already feels like he has been reduced to a slobbering brute, his tongue clumsily plundering the girl’s mouth, teeth nipping at her lips. Not at all the refined, gentle lover he has imagined himself. None of this is as it should be.</p><p>Korra’s cheeks are wet against his, her hands fumbling with the heavy fabric of his pants. He flinches as her cool fingertips graze the sensitive flesh of his abdomen, forcing his garments down to pool at his ankles.</p><p>They pull away from the kiss, panting and tense, jaws sore from Noatak’s maneuvering. Korra makes the mistake of looking down, and just as Tarrlok moves to cover the offensive proof of his arousal, his arms are snapped back up to grab the girl’s chest.</p><p>Some distant, detached, despicable part of himself marvels at Noatak’s power, his control. His brother is barely moving, his fingers tracing abstract patterns against the metal back of the chair, and yet he is manipulating individual veins and muscles in two separate people. It’s not just skillful work, it’s prodigious.</p><p>Not that it makes this better. Not that it makes Tarrlok want to die any less as his hands squeeze and paw at Korra’s breasts, the tip of one middle finger rubbing lazy circles against the dark skin of her nipple. She sobs and shudders at his touch, at her own stroking ministrations, and Tarrlok has never felt so vile in his life.</p><p>Even still, a moan wrenches itself from his throat.</p><p>Noatak’s hands move as though spinning an invisible ball, and Tarrlok can feel himself twist unnaturally, his feet nearly lifting from the floor. Korra releases him, and his arms move from her breasts to her underarms, hoisting her up onto the interrogation room table.</p><p>It hurts to be bended. It hurts more to resist. That his brother has utterly surpassed their father’s mastery of bloodbending does nothing to change this.</p><p>His hand is raised to Korra’s face, calloused fingers wiping away the tears streaking down one cheek. His thumb stretches to trace against her bottom lip, the silken sensation sending sparks down his spine, and then he is pushing against her mouth with his hand, fingers slipping into the warm, wet space insistently.</p><p>Laving her tongue against his fingers, Korra begins to shimmy her own trousers down, awkwardly lifting herself one hip at a time atop the table to shove the tangle of cloth and fur to the floor. Her skin explodes in goosebumps as her naked rear touches the cool metal.  </p><p>Tarrlok knows what is coming, and his heart seizes a beat. It is obscene.</p><p>“She’s barely more than a <em>child</em>, Noatak,” he croaks in distress. “I am <em>begging</em> you. Don’t do this.”   </p><p>As answer, Tarrlok’s arm tenses painfully and he withdraws his hand from her mouth, a glistening strand of saliva linking them. Those same slickened fingers are brought lower, lower, coming to stroke at the sacred and scandalous place between her legs.</p><p>She is wetter than the situation warrants. A mercy, perhaps.</p><p>He stifles a sob of his own as the girl’s thighs quake on either side of his hand. Korra is openly weeping, exhausted from being moved, stimulated forcibly.</p><p>“No, <em>please</em>,” his voice almost has a whining tone to it as he clasps his hands around Korra’s hips, pulling her roughly to the very edge of the table. “You’ll – <em>I’ll </em>– hurt her.”</p><p>His brother knows. His brother evidently does not care.</p><p>A stinging tear carves its way down his face as he lines up their bodies, the long hem of his shirt bunched up at his waist, Korra’s legs reluctantly wrapped around him, ankles crossed at the small of his back.</p><p>He tries to look her in the eye, tries to make her understand how much he does not want this. But she won’t look, simply scrunches up her face and breathes in and out with terrified, shuddering gasps.      </p><p>“I’m sorry,” he chokes out, and then he plunges into her.</p><p>He bites his lip until it bleeds, but the tortured groan still escapes him.</p><p>Noatak drives him relentlessly. If the table were not bolted down it would already have been pummeled halfway across the interrogation room with his thrusts.</p><p>“I’m sorry,” he pants with each jolt, and it becomes a whispered mantra, accompanied only by the sickening sound of their colliding flesh.</p><p>
  <em>I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorrysorrysorrysosorry</em>
</p><p>Tarrlok hates himself.</p><p>Hates that his body, this treacherous amalgamation of flesh and bone and blood, is reveling in the feeling of the Avatar around him, wet and warm and tight to the point of pain.  </p><p>Hates that he has ever imagined doing this to her, even if in the confines of his mind she was always a joyously consenting participant.</p><p>
  <em>I’m sorry. </em>
</p><p>Noatak shifts in his chair, and it creaks.</p><p>“Oh dear, brother,” he sneers, “I think you were her first.”</p><p>Tarrlok feels his head tilt down with the same discomfort as if his brother had actually shoved it with his hand. He stares at the place where his body joins Korra’s, where beyond sight he is buried deep in her. There is a mess of mucous and blood smeared along the insides of her thighs, the space below his navel.</p><p>
  <em>No. No no nononono…</em>
</p><p>This is wantonly cruel.</p><p>Tarrlok buries his face against the crook of Korra’s neck and sobs.</p><p>It should never have been him. Not like this.</p><p>He can’t even touch her properly to take some of the pain away – his limbs are hostage to a man determined to deny them as much pleasure as possible, even in this most intimate union.  </p><p>His litany of apologies continue, and then abruptly, he realizes that Noatak has slipped from beneath his skin. Tarrlok pulls back, ready to extricate himself as fast as he can now that he is not obligated to remain, rutting over Korra.</p><p>But just as he begins to slide out of her, she clenches around him and lets out a gasp so sharp it is almost a shriek. The strength of her contractions is almost dizzying, and he knows, dejectedly, that there is no way he has contributed to this. Much as he would have liked to, under different circumstances.</p><p>No, this is all Noatak, all rerouted blood and involuntary reaction.</p><p>And, just as suddenly as his realization of her forced climax occurs, so too does his own.</p><p>Tarrlok huffs and growls, trying to clamp down the muscles of his stomach, to <em>stop </em>the impending release, but he can’t. Of course he can’t.</p><p>He hasn’t been able to stop anything.</p><p>He slips from Korra, and falls promptly onto his haunches, face buried in his hands.</p><p>Shocked and repulsed from the wild swing of emotions and feelings – the burning pain, the uncontrollable elation – the girl merely lays back on the table, her head dangling as new tears begin to trickle down her face.  </p><p>Noatak rises from his chair, straightening his uniform before stalking to the interrogation room door. He spares his brother a cursory glance, then exits.</p><p>In the dim light, Tarrlok trembles and apologizes until his throat is raw. He's not entirely sure who he hopes might hear him. </p>
  </div></div>
</body>
</html>